


No Word Enough

by cyprith



Series: Modern Magic AU [6]
Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 04:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1845055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyprith/pseuds/cyprith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diaval deals with the aftermath of his mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Word Enough

**Author's Note:**

> chocochipbiscuit prompted: Apple falling from the tree
> 
> (Trigger warning for self-loathing and a variety of inappropriate language.)

Diaval wakes by degrees, mostly to pain.

His head throbs. Every bone in his body aches. His mouth tastes like shit—like troll dust, _fuck_ —and he can hear his heartbeat in his teeth.

For a long moment, he doesn’t dare open his eyes. But the wing draped over his shoulder shifts, and last night returns to him regardless.

Fuck, he thinks. _Fuck_. As if he hadn’t ruined his life _enough_.

Swallowing, gingerly, Diaval sits up. Better to face the music now, he figures. But whatever he was expecting…

Maleficent lies atop the covers next to him, remnants of wind still tousled in her hair. She wears an old t-shirt of all things— _her_ , in a _t_ - _shirt_ —open in the back and gaping around her wings. It takes Diaval a long moment to stop staring at the bare glimpse of skin he sees, to get his head together enough to _get up_ and _get dressed_ like a rational fucking being.

Teeth clenched, chest like a vice, he shoves himself into his clothes. He tries not to think, but fuck, he’s not sure he could have found a worse way to spend his evening if he’d actually gone _looking_ for ways to fuck up.

Just like his fucking _father_ —apples and trees and all that—give him something nice and he’ll always ruin it. Always. He’ll see it in shatters before he’s done.

And that’s the worst part, he thinks, watching Maleficent sleep, her wings all spread out like a fallen angel in a seedy motel. How many last chances could a bloke _get_? He’d had _nothing_ when she found him. If not for her, he’d have lost his place, lost his parole, been back in that damned _box_ or long since dead.

But she’d looked at him and she’d thought—thought he was worth a damn, probably. Thought he could pull his head out of his ass long enough to get his shit together, act like a goddamn _adult._

She’d _trusted him._

So, of course, he went and proved her wrong.

Sinking down into a chair at his rickety kitchen table, Diaval drops his head into his hands—missing half his hair, too, isn’t that a treat?—and waits for Maleficent to wake.

—

It doesn’t take long. Without his heat in the bed, she stirs almost immediately. And he can’t help watching—he’s a fuckup, he’s a _creep_ —as she stretches out her wings.

He hasn’t the first idea in hell what to do. Usually, his experience with these sorts of situations involves other hung-over individuals and the prospect of breakfast. But he knows there’s no food in the house, naught but old eggrolls and pad Thai, and so he has absolutely nothing to offer her.

Coffee, though, he realizes. Coffee.

Like the village idiot, Diaval stumbles to his feet and puts the percolator on. Maleficent doesn’t move from the bed. She watches him, long legs crossed, and says, “We don’t have to talk about last night, if you’d rather not. However, I would like to ask a question first.”

He closes his eyes, bracing for the hammer fall. “Alright.”

And he’s expecting… he doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Something like the disgusted tangent in his head, maybe. He’s expecting she’ll yell, expecting she’ll ask him what the hell he thought he was doing going to his ex-girlfriend’s house when he knew—he _knew_ she wasn’t clean, knew she’d offer and he’d accept. He’s expecting she’ll fire him.

But she doesn’t.

“Is there something I can do to help?” she asks. “I have extensive resources, all of them at your disposal.”

Slowly, Diaval learns to breathe again. He steadies himself against the counter, doesn’t dare to hope. “Am I fired?”

And Maleficent sighs. She slumps in on herself in a way he’s never seen, wings folded like arms around her shoulders, like holding herself together against an onslaught.

“Professionally, as long as your… extracurricular activities do not affect your performance, it’s your business.” She takes a deep breath and looks up, meets his eyes like jumping in the deep end. “Personally, however, I am worried about you.”

She could have hit him. It would have hurt less.  
  
Words clotting up in his throat, Diaval tries to apologize, tries to find words that’ll make this last, enormous fuckup approach okay again. But Maleficent only shakes her head.

“I am not… _disappointed_ , Diaval, or—or angry, if that’s what concerns you. I only…” Her fingers dance and twist against her knee, searching for words she cannot reach. At last, she shakes her head and sighs.

“I own several buildings within walking distance of Moor Inc,” she says. “All of them with open apartments. I’d like you to choose one.”

And it is so far beyond what he’d been expecting that Diaval cannot fathom—cannot _begin_ —to speak.

A year ago, two, three—still stealing cars or fresh out of prison and mad at the world, he’d have bristled. He’d have misunderstood. Would have figured it for pity, thought it looked like distrust.

But today, the CEO of Moor Inc—the most powerful Other in the world—sits rumpled and exhausted in a one-room apartment on the worst side of town, because he’d called in the middle of the night and she’d _come_. No strings attached, no questions asked. _For_ _him._

He sees her, he _knows her,_ and Diaval cannot swallow all the knives carving tatters of his throat.

“It’s not an ultimatum,” Maleficent adds, so softly. “Just a hope.”

The coffee maker beeps its finish. Mechanically, Diaval finds a clean pair of cups. He leaves his black, fixes hers the way he knows she likes it, and brings it to the bed.

For a long moment, neither speaks. He doesn’t trust his voice, obscures his face behind the lip of his mug and hides his shaking hands.

But Maleficent only waits, wings so tight around her shoulders, watching him like he might break.

Like he matters. Like she cares.

“I don’t know,” he answers her at last. “I don’t know I can.”

And he means—he means _this_ , all of it. It’s a different kind of life with her than he’s ever known before. He doesn’t know if he can do it. Doesn’t know if he can even keep his _shit_ together long enough.

But despite everything, despite his record and his fuckups, Maleficent reaches over and takes his hand.

She says, “You can.”

And Diaval believes her. 


End file.
